U.S., Iraqi Troops Battle Militants

American and Iraqi forces fended off an assault early Sunday in the southern city of Diwaniya, where the Iraqi army fought a major battle with Shiite Muslim militias in August, the U.S. Army said.

A statement from the Army said that 30 militants were killed, but Iraqi witnesses to the early-morning gun battle said between three and seven people were injured and none were killed.

The statement said that an M-1A2 Abrams tank was severely damaged by rocket-propelled grenades, but no U.S. or Iraqi soldiers were killed or injured in the fighting.

Ten Iraqis were detained, including one described as “a high-value target,” the Army said. The suspect was believed to have been involved in the execution-style slayings of several Iraqi soldiers who had run out of ammunition during the Aug. 28 battle, which left 25 Iraqi soldiers dead.

There were conflicting versions of both the extent of the fighting Sunday and its cause.

Local followers of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr downplayed the incident, saying that his Al Mahdi militia was not involved.

“We do not want to retaliate because Muqtada Sadr ordered an unarmed retaliation with no bloodshed,” said Mohammed Abdul Hassan, a Sadr follower on Qadisiya province’s governing council.

Some Sadr adherents said residents of Diwaniya were not expecting raids during the holy month of Ramadan and reacted by opening fire on the troops.

The Army said a joint patrol went into the city about 1:30 a.m. to detain the “high-value target,” who was not named. The patrol came under attack by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

As many as 10 teams of militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked the tank, and members of six teams were killed, the Army said. Soldiers secured the area while the tank was recovered. Additional Iraqi soldiers continued the mission and arrested the suspect, the statement said.

Maj. Gen. Othman Ghanimi, commander of the Iraqi 8th Army Division, said the fighting started when a roadside bomb blast hit the convoy.

Witnesses said the shooting had stopped by 6 a.m.

Tension has remained high in the city, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, since the August battle. Members of Sadr’s group, many of whom hold positions in local government, complain that U.S. patrols have come almost nightly to search houses and arrest residents suspected of involvement in the August clash.

“U.S. forces conduct raids on houses and make people really angry at them,” said Saleem Abid, a spokesman for the Sadr organization in Qadisiya province.

The U.S. military reported today that three Marines had been killed in combat Friday in Al Anbar province. The deaths raise U.S. fatalities in Iraq to at least 33 in the first week of October.

The U.S. Army also reported Sunday that two American soldiers were killed Saturday. One, attached to the Multinational Division in Baghdad, was killed in a northwest neighborhood of the capital when his patrol came under small-arms fire. The other, from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, was killed in the city of Mosul by an improvised explosive device.

In a session Sunday in the capital, parliament voted to strip one lawmaker of immunity, allowing his prosecution on corruption charges. Mishaan Jaburi, chief of the Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc, was accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for oil line security. Jaburi has fled Iraq.

A curfew in place since Friday in Kirkuk was lifted after a U.S. and Iraqi military sweep in the northern city. The operation netted 184 terrorism suspects and a cache of weapons, an Iraqi army spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the Baghdad morgue reported receiving the bodies of 51 men between 25 and 50 who were found in the city from 6 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday. Five of those deaths had previously been reported. An Iraqi Interior Ministry official put the death toll in Baghdad on Sunday at 35.

doug.smith@latimes.com

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Times staff writers Saif Hameed, Saif Rasheed and Raheem Salman in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah, Kirkuk, Mosul and Najaf contributed to this report.